Episode 534: The Story of Laurie Bembenek and the Tragic Murder of Christine Schultz (With Special Guest Holly Madison)

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You're listening to a morbid network podcast.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hey weirdos, I'm ash.

And I'm Alayna.

And I'm Holly, and this is a special episode of Morbid.

Thanks for having me back, you guys, it's always so fun to come on here.

My God, of course, we were so excited that you wanted to come back.

You're always welcome.

Yeah, you're missing out if you're not listening.

And join the Patreon, because I joined the Patreon, so I've been slumber partying it lately.

Ooh, I need to join.

It's amazing.

I want to slumber party it.

Patreon is always where I rant about my drama. Like some older playmate. Went on a podcast this week and was like, saying stuff that I wasn't too happy about. So I have to have to respond on the Patreon, you know what else?

Hell yeah.

Good for you, you have to say something similar. I saw some of that on TikTok and I was like, If you go against Holly, I just don't like you anymore.

Yeah, you've made an enemy, thank you.

Of course, but we're here today to talk about your not even new show anymore. Because now it's on season two. So the Playboy murders and I'm so excited to talk to you about it. We are basically just going to dive right in because congratulations on season two and it's premiering January 22nd.

Yeah, Monday, January 22nd. I'm so excited. We have seven episodes this season and they're all so different. Some of them are kind of famous cases from back in the day.

It's going to be so good.

The vibe is so right of this show. Oh it is, it's just everything about the show is such like a. It just hits all the things you like. You know what I mean, like the music, the coloring of it, like everything.

Thank you, everybody on the team does such a great job. I was so happy with season one, I got more positive feedback on that than like anything I've ever done in my life. So I'm super excited for everybody to see season two.

No, it's so good. My husband, Drew and I, we watched season one as soon as it came out, and we were hooked instantly. And I wanted to ask you personally, like, what was it like putting the first season together? Like how much? Obviously so much work went into that.

Yeah, well, the production team is great. They already had the cases picked out before I even joined. Because when my agent first told me about the project and that it was called the Playboy Murders, I was like, No, I don't want to do another, I can't handle another Playboy project. Like, I'll have nightmares at night if I do that.

Definitely, it's just so good, like it captivates you the second that you start watching.

And you're sharing stories that need to be shared. Like, it's like you said, there's stories that even you didn't know about. And you're like, very well versed in, like the history of Playboy. Yeah, so it's like, these people, they fell all under the radar, and it's nice that the show is actually bringing them back into the light.

And I like that you guys kind of cover everything, like even unsolved cases you've covered, so hopefully they can get new light shed on them.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's every true crime producer's dream is for, maybe, you know, something to come out of sharing those cases that are unsolved. But maybe somebody will come forward or somebody remembers something.

Yeah, definitely. Did anything change with your process when, like, you were able to? Were you able to pick some of the cases for season two, or did they bring all of the cases to you again?

Yeah, season two, we collaborated and there were some cases I knew about that they didn't know about. Because they involved some people that I'd met before and had found out that horrible things had happened to them after I lost touch with these people. So it was probably about like 50-50 cases they came up with and cases I came up with. And they're just the best team to work with and I love them and it's been a lot of fun.

That's awesome.

That's the dream, yeah, it's cool that you were able to have more of your input.

Yeah.

Has there been one specific case, either season one or season two, that really stuck with you, that, like, kept you up at night? I know for me, it's like Dorothy Stratton and Star Stow, those two ones just really stick with me.

Yeah, I think for season one, Star Stow really stuck with me, too. It's one of the unsolved cases. She was at the mansion as a playmate, so I can relate to some of her story. And I had known who she was before, and I knew that something tragic had happened to her before, but I didn't know too many details. And I remember even back in my Playboy days being very captivated by her photos. Because they did this really cool. Like glam rock pictorial with her back in the 70s, which was very, kind of unusual for Playboy to do, yeah.

It was really cool.

Yeah, and then this one that we're going to cover today. It sticks with me a lot, too, because I just finished reading Lori Benbenek's autobiography. So really getting into how she felt about the whole case and what she was going through. So right now, that's the one that's kind of sticking with me.

That's kind of how I feel right now, too, and I'm sure you do, Alina after reading it.

Oh, I couldn't believe this case. Yeah, I couldn't believe it, I had never heard of it.

Twisty turns and it's....

That's the thing, it's so twisty it really is. By the end of it, you're like, what just happened? like, what happened? Everybody lost here?

And you still don't.

Me either, like, if somebody's going to ask me, Well, who did it? I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know, I don't know either.

That's the worst part.

But yeah, I mean, we should probably just get into it. So Holly, we'll hand it over to you to kind of walk us through the case.

Yeah, so this case got quite a bit of coverage a long time ago, like before your time early 80s. Because this involves a woman who worked as a playboy. Bunny was, I think, framed for murder, and she went to prison for nine years. Escaped from prison was on the run. The nickname she got back when she was on the police force was Bambi, so everybody had this slogan run, Bambi run, because at this point everybody was rooting for her.

It's cool that she got to follow in her dad's footsteps, too.

Yeah, absolutely, and kind of, you know, this could have gone so differently, you know? Her father resigned from the police force because he saw corruption. And this could have been a way to, like, you know, circle back around and it could have ended more positively.

I think I read that she ended up not liking it because obviously it took on. Kind of like a life of its own at that point, toward, like the end of her, like getting out of prison and everything.

Yeah, it kind of started to sound very bimbo at the end. Because here she's been classified as like nothing more than a playboy bunny, and like, being called Bambi, right? Just kind of took a turn.

It's like they used it against her.

There's two different things too that come out about, like where that nickname came from. And one of them is like a nicer way. Where. It's like she was so fast and she lapped all the guys, so they were like, she's like Bambi, she's fast. And then other people are like, No, it's because of her big doe eyes.

I like the other one, yeah, and I'm sure she probably did, too.

And I think that I think all those reasons are probably reasons it stuck. Yeah, there's so many.

It all fit together.

One interesting thing to know is when she was in the Police Academy, she made a friend, another woman who was trained to become a police officer, named Judy Zess. And she would come into play several more times during this case and this whole journey.

Yeah, Judy is Judy something, Judy makes a mark, she makes a few.

Yeah.

Judy scares me, too.

So Lori graduated, she excelled. As a congratulations gift for herself. She brought a bright orange camaro, and it was a fast car for a woman who was going places.

What a badass congratulations to me gift.

I love that, that's awesome.

Amazing, I just think about this time, you know what was written about it? And she just must have felt like life was so promising at this moment.

Yeah, exactly.

She was working for everything she wanted to work for, and she was succeeding.

Exactly.

That's all you can ask for.

So she's on the police force, she's finishing her training, you know, in the early 80s. It was obviously a lot of men on the police force and there was a lot of socializing where the lines could get kind of blurred. Apparently on the police force. At this time, there was a lot of, you know, going out to bars and partying and things like that.

A huge double standard was going on, for sure.

And they're like ticketing people for indecent exposure and then being naked in the park. It's like, No, I can't have it both ways.

What's going on? Another issue she had was with some of the officers wives. You know, at these social events, people would have a few drinks and they'd get a little mouthy with each other. And, you know, women would come up to Bambi and be like, You know, I see my husband looking at you, you know, why don't?

Yeah, why are you coming to me?

Yell at your husband exactly like, That's his problem, man.

Go yell at him.

I would, I was thinking that, too. When I read that, I'm like, how embarrassing to have to go up to somebody and say, I see how my.

Husband Yeah, like, I'd be like, honestly, girl, like together, let's go yell at him, like, I'd be like, Why are you yelling at me?

Exactly.

So beyond the sex parties and the drugs, allegedly, some of the other officers were up to even more serious things. Such as soliciting sex workers on the job, sleeping through shifts in squad cars, paying informants for drugs, using drugs, even selling pornographic material. Wow, so there's a lot of a lot going on.

I'm like, when were you guys working in between all that?

Seriously.

Seems like a lot, exactly.

And in Lori's autobiography, there was a lot of that when she's talking about her training. And like disputes that would come up. And like certain shifts and areas of town that officers wouldn't want to work. Or they would have this thing where they have to check in and like, make phone calls from where they were at certain times of nights, back to headquarters. Just so people knew they were working and some police officers didn't want to do that. Because a lot of them, I don't want to say a lot of them, but some of them weren't working. They were like sleeping in their cars or off, doing other things, and they didn't really want to, like, be on their beat so much.

Wow, that's scary.

You're like, Milwaukee, what's going on? you? OK, and that comes back later, too, with a certain someone. MM hmm.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. well, you were holding something back intentionally.

Wondery Plus.

And you can see why she thought that, you know, exactly.

It seems like they were looking for the first moment when they could clear it off.

It was very performative. Like, Oh, let's hire all these people like women and people of color, and then completely get rid of them as soon as we can.

Yeah, exactly. So. Even after that happened, Lori remains friends with Judy. Which is, here's when I start to cringe. Like, I think we've all in our lifetimes had that toxic friend who, for whatever reason. Maybe they're fun, maybe they're magnetic, maybe they're fun to vent to, maybe, you know, whatever. They provide you some support in some way, so you look over all these kind of toxic things, even something huge, like, you know, Judy throwing Lori under the bus and she ends up losing her career, basically.

Yeah, that's big.

Girlfriend of Judy.

Yeah, it's a big one.

Just since they're both out of a job, why don't we go down to the Lake Geneva Playboy Club and try out to be bunnies? Because back in the day you could make a lot of money being a playboy bunny. It was a job where you tended to get tipped really well. You know, you could bring somebody a cup of coffee and get 50 bucks back in 1970s money, so that's huge.

That makes sense.

So there were a lot of rules and regulations. Working as a bunny, you know, you kind of had to keep your eye on customers and facilitate their experience all over the place. Whether it was at the ski chalet or in the cabaret, where there are performances and things like that.

Like those clubs seem so glamorous looking on the outside, I think they really were, you know, like the Chalet and all that like, it just feels like such a glamorous atmosphere.

It definitely looks like it. But then there was like all kinds of shady stuff going on, like behind closed doors with the members and stuff.

Yeah, for sure, yeah. The Lake Geneva Club sounds really fun, and I guess it was even family friendly too, like you could bring your kids and stay there. It was really interesting.

Yeah, it truly has evolved, yeah, and it's evolved like, like, you know, hills and valleys kind of thing.

Definitely.

Yeah, it's never like a straight line.

No, that's why it's so fascinating, though, the research, I know, because you always find something new.

Everybody just always feels different.

Yeah, so many layers. So. Lori eventually filed a lawsuit, a complaint, against the Milwaukee Police Department, because she felt like she was unfairly dismissed. So this is kind of something that would hang over her head a little bit. She wasn't satisfied working as a playboy bunny.

I didn't either.

But it was really important for her to pursue justice. And I wonder, I shouldn't talk about this too much in our autobiography. But I wonder how much of her dad's experience kind of played into this. It's almost like wanting to finish out, like a generational trauma in a way. Like if her father had resigned from the department after seeing corruption. Like, I wonder how much of that was in her motivation to go after and do this complaint against the police department?

I could definitely see that being a driving factor because in a way like her, justice would be his justice.

Yeah, it's like unfinished business, right?

Exactly, that's a perfect way to put it.

Yeah.

And she was only like, 21, 22 when this was all going on. It's funny when we look back on these older cases, I feel like people became such adults at like, age 18 back then.

Yes, so true.

I mean, I was a 22 year old, 22 year old, like I was this idiot girl in college. But I look at Lori's story and all the things she had done and she's doing this big lawsuit and everything. And it's just crazy. Like how much had already gone on at such a young age?

I know it really is, she's just pursuing so many things like so wholeheartedly at such a young age, it's wild.

Yeah, so despite her grudge against the police department, her social circle still included a lot of people connected to the police. And through a friend, she met a man named Fred Schultz. He was a detective on the Milwaukee Police Department. He was dating a friend of hers, but they caught each other's eye and eventually connected.

Yeah, definitely.

I got that vibe.

So he was tall, blonde, handsome. Lori loved a man with a badge. And even though she was receiving veiled threats for pursuing this case against the police Department, she was falling for Fred. She would have things happen like she would go out to her car and find like a dead rat on the window.

Oh my God, very symbolic.

Yeah, yeah. So there were things happening where she didn't feel 100 safe.

That's so scary.

I don't wonder getting involved with a man who was a detective on the force. I wonder if there was a feeling of shelter a little bit in that it wouldn't turn out that way. But I wonder if you're kind of feeling threatened by this big force you're going up against. But you're making these intimate connections with a man who's on the police force, maybe that feels a little safe in, like, a counterintuitive way.

No, it really does. I could definitely see that.

Like, she was looking for protection.

And an ally, yeah, like, maybe he could help even.

Like, maybe he can make everyone see.

Or maybe somebody who's going to, like, let you know what's going on, yeah.

And this is the guy that's supposed to like, know you, like. You know intimately, and know who you are as a person, and know you're not a bad person. You know, like, so you're hoping that he can convey that to everyone else and that they'll listen to him.

And stop leaving dead rats on your windshields.

And he's a detective, which it's like he should have a little pull, you know? He's a little above the patrolman at that point. So it's like you would think he would be able to. They would listen to him, maybe, and take his word.

I take his word at some point.

Yeah, absolutely so. By Christmas that year, Lori and Fred were super close, They were spending every day together.

Yeah, which is not great.

Yeah, definitely not great at all, yeah.

And actually, Fred and Christine had only been divorced for six months by the time Fred and Lori were married.

Oh, wow.

Oh, I didn't even realize it was that soon.

And there were times in Lori's autobiography where she mentioned she felt like Fred either wasn't completely over Christine or just had some sort of weird obsession. Whether it was resentment that Christine had moved on with someone else and he was still paying the bills, I don't know. But there was a time where Lori found the wedding ring from Christine in Fred's pocket. And she kind of went off on him, like, what, why is this? So why is this something you're carrying around?

Yeah, I would be pissed off about that.

So a few months later, after they were married, in the spring of 1981, Lori was abruptly awoken by a phone call from Fred. It was a quarter to three in the morning and she could barely make sense of what he was saying. But he was telling her that something had happened to his ex-wife, Christine. The call, in the early morning hours of May 28th, 1981, might have startled Lori awake. But nothing compared to what had just happened in the house that Fred had built with his own two hands. In the middle of the night, his eldest son had awoken and described that a man had been standing behind his younger brother with his hands around the boy's neck. When the boy was able to get free, the man ran from the boy's room and into his mother's room.

And they were young, I think, wasn't the oldest one, like, 11, yeah, 11 years old. These are young kids seeing all this.

And that's a really important detail. I didn't realize that. He later said, like, no, it wasn't a green jogging suit, because the jogging suit becomes such an important detail.

It really does. At 2 a..m, the boys called their mother's boyfriend to come help and sat by her side. They were even the oldest. One was trying to do first aid, trying to stop the bleeding. It's really heartbreaking.

That is heart-wrenching.

Yeah, she passed away that night. Next thing, you know, all the police officers are at Lori's husband's house, the house he had built anyway, that Christine still lived in. Every cop in town was there, and it was almost like they'd lost one of their own. Because this is so closely connected to the police department. Fred's oldest son had gotten a good enough look at the man who killed his mother to give the cops a description. An intruder, a man around 5'8 with a long red ponytail, had come in. And they had collected reports from all around the neighborhood that people had seen a man wearing a green track suit with a long red ponytail jogging throughout the neighborhood.

It's very strange, that is strange.

Yeah, it is so. For Lori, obviously, it's a huge shock and a tragedy to lose somebody this close to you. But also, she finds herself kind of the mother of the two sons.

Yeah, you've got to step into that role.

Yeah, and she was someone who had never wanted to have kids. Wasn't really prepared for that, but she really stepped up to the plate as best she could.

And again, she's so young. When this happens. Like, to have to step into the role of a mother to two traumatized, grieving children like that's huge.

Truly traumatized, because that's the sad part about this, too. Is like, you can search and search and search. And there's like, barely any information about Christine, you know? Because it's really focused on, like, the shenanigans that happen afterwards. And it's like, I think you can find out that. Christine was like, 30 years old. She was a mother of two, loved her kids, and it's like, that's really all you can find out. So it is like, always sad when somebody gets like, left behind in these.

It just got so sensationalized. I think with all, like you said, the shenanigans is the perfect way to put it.

Yeah, and the way Fred comes off from what I read like, Christine must have had a hard time dealing with him, co-parenting, constantly fighting about money and things like that.

Exactly.

Yeah, I think it was definitely unpleasant.

I saw some quote that said she was sick of his philandering ways, which you can kind of see. He met Laurie pretty quickly.

He put two and two together.

Yeah.

So, standard procedure after a murder is to canvass the area and look at those closest to the victim. That list included Christine's boyfriend, her ex-husband Fred Laurie, and their roommate Judy, because I think I neglected to mention Fred and Laurie were living with Judy's ex. The woman who was pot smoking a joint and kind of threw Laurie under the bus, she was also their roommate. They were just trying to make ends meet. You know, Fred felt like he was giving most of his money, you know, as he should, to his kids.

That's interesting, Yeah, that's really interesting, yeah.

Reclaim it.

So Fred and Christine's boyfriend both had alibis. Fred, you know, was on duty at the time and they didn't have anything to worry about. It seemed. Judy and Laurie both refused to take polygraph tests. Laurie was worried that the Milwaukee Police Department would take her results and this opportunity to use it against her. Like she was already afraid of them because she filed this big complaint.

And she'd already gone through so much with them. And then I read somewhere that it came out that Fred was lying about being on duty and that he was actually. He said he was working with his partner and then it came out later that they were actually drinking at a bar. But then some detective looked into that and there was a lot of holes within the story, so it's like, was he even working?

Where were you, Fred?

Yeah, his story is so suspect. And then Laurie says in her autobiography that, you know. When Fred and his police partner came back to their apartment, they felt the hood of Laurie's car to see if she'd been out. And she wrote in her book that she thought, Well, that's a weird thing to do. And the car was not warm, so it was determined that it couldn't have left the driveway that night. So they thought. Once inside the house, Fred grabbed his off-duty gun and his partner examined it.

That's such a strange one.

Yeah, that's sketchy that he was avoiding people.

Yeah, it's really weird.

I want to know who this guy is, I know.

Is it your real hair?

No.

No, I'm willing to bet.

So back at the scene, there was no sign of forced entry. So there was the thought that maybe the killer was somebody who knew how to get into the house. A safe that was in the den was tampered with. There was nothing in it, so they don't know if somebody got what was in it or what was in it in the first place.

No, not at all.

It's that flushed wig that is so weird to me. I'm like, first of all, who flushes a wig down the toilet? And why would you call the plumber?

Would a wig even flush? That's the thing I feel like if I tried to do that, it would just the toilet would overflow.

Yeah, it would just shoot it back like it wouldn't even suck it down.

Every time I try to picture that, I'm like, No, that can't happen.

How would that work?

I'm like, what force does your toilet have? Because that's in his tile.

That's in his toilet.

Yeah.

Exactly like, Did they cut the wig up?

Like, I don't know.

It's weird, it's weird.

And it just seems like if you were really trying to get rid of that, you would do it differently. I don't think you would flush it down the toilet unless maybe you were trying to frame someone.

Especially like police officers, yeah, like, if that was coming out of that house, you've all been police officers, like you all know how this works. That seems like a very silly thing for any of you to do to try to get away with it.

That's such a good point, you know? Yeah, yeah.

It really does.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

That's so scary. Can you imagine, if that is the truth? How helpless she must have felt.

Oh my God, I can't even imagine.

Like, Oh, I can't imagine.

So the trial was very sensationalized, and it was supposed to be the first televised trial in the city. Which to me is crazy. Because this is like the early 80s, and I didn't realize they were televising trials. I thought that was more of like a 90s thing, like around the time of like, O..J.

Yeah, I didn't know it was this far back.

Yeah, I didn't either.

Yeah, so she was being characterized as, you know, this femme fatale, playboy bunny, you know? Her looks became a point of contention in the trial. You know, she felt like she couldn't do anything right. As far as how she dressed. If she wore anything that looked cute, she was being told she was too sexy.

That happens so often when women are on trial and it's like, murder or not. We're not here to talk about what she's wearing, we're here to figure out did she do this or not. It's so silly to me.

Like, what does her cleavage have to do with the murder trial at hand?

It should have nothing to do with it.

Right, have you guys ever read Marcia Clark's book from the O...J. trial?

I haven't read it, but they picked her apart during that trial, and it's like she wasn't even on trial.

I know she was just trying to do her job.

Yeah, it's such a good book. And she's like, they wouldn't shut up about my hair.

No, they wouldn't. It must be so hard when you're just trying to, like, prove yourself and trying to do your job which you have earned and worked for.

And then, being the victim's family, I would be so pissed off. If that's what people were focused on, like the lawyer's hair, or even the person on trial, their hair, their appearance, I could give two shits. I want to know did they do this or not?

Exactly.

That's what we're here for.

Yeah, absolutely so. The evidence was mostly circumstantial, but the nail in the coffin was testimony from, you guessed it, Judy Zess.

Oh my gosh scary Judy, she's back.

Judy claimed that she had heard Lori say that she should have Christine quote unquote, dusted. She also claimed to know that Lori and Avid Jogger owned a green track suit, but Lori, even through her autobiography, insists that she never owned a green track suit. That wasn't even a color she really wore. So she was being painted as a woman who was both a cunning seductress and a woman who was foolish enough to shoot her husband's ex-wife with his gun and then flush the evidence in her own apartment.

Yeah, that's so nuts.

That escalated so fast, and it's like, you wonder if anybody was like, Hey, why would she flush a wig down the toilet to get rid of it and then call a plumber to come find it?

Why would she do that?

Like, she was a police officer. Why is no one being like, that's wild?

And then the green jogging suit. It held so much weight and it's like they never even searched her stuff to see if she had one. Yeah, yeah.

As far as I know, no one ever found a green jogging suit.

And it seemed like such a big deal in the case.

Just more circumstantial evidence that never should be used to convict someone.

That's the thing, because pretty much everything was circumstantial.

Yeah, and then you have Fred's eldest son who's insisting this person was in a green tracksuit. It's just ridiculous.

And he's saying, this was a man, this was a man's build, like, I'm sure of it, and I mean, he must. He saw this person's face, too, This person was like choking his brother.

Yeah, standing right in front of him.

Looked right at him. It's like, I know he was clearly being traumatized at the moment and was under great duress. Yeah, so I can't imagine how that feels. But like, he got a look and is saying he's confident that he knows that was a man.

Well, and I was saying to Alina earlier, I really don't believe that Lori did it, I don't know if maybe she was involved somehow, I can't say one way or the other. But to me, it doesn't make sense that with Christine being shot at such a close range, I feel like she would have been able to fight off Lori because Lori's a slim like, she's tall, but she's a pretty slim woman.

But remember, she's gone through police academy training.

That's true.

Where you're literally, like, trained to take someone down.

That is true.

That's just Devil's advocating. I don't believe she really did this, but I don't know who did this, but just to Devil's advocate.

Which is a good point. It's just the fact that it's at such close range and that she was even able to, like, tie her up and everything.

And to go after the children first, too.

Yeah, to be strangling a child.

Feels very a strange line of thinking for her, I don't know.

You would think, if that was the case, like she would not want the kids to see her. I mean, that would be the last thing you'd want.

Because they would recognize her like they would see her face, and they would be like, What is it? And in this case, she would have been actively assaulting them in front of each other. Like, that's weird.

And that doesn't make a lot of sense. Also with what you said earlier, where she really stepped into a mom role for them before she was apprehended for this. You would think that they would realize like she was there that night, it was her.

That would be very messed up. To attempt to murder one of them and then step in as the mom like that would be strange. Not that people haven't done worse, but, like, just doesn't line up.

And I feel like the boys would have, yeah, would have realized it was her and recognized her, yeah, and been even more traumatized by that.

Yeah, absolutely. So she goes to prison. And over the next several years, from behind bars, Lori was working diligently to get what she felt like she had been denied a fair trial.

That was another part to me, that was just like, we're just going to blow past that. You said she bought this specific wig with a check, and she doesn't have checks.

And it's like, whose name was on that check?

Yeah, like, find me the check, then, yeah.

You don't have any records.

That's just hearsay at that point, yeah.

It's so crazy. And you know. It was also a dark time for Lori because she only got two letters from her husband while she was in prison. The second one was a letter letting her know that he wanted a divorce. He wrote Goodbye and good luck.

Ooh, that's rough.

Yeah, so one day, during visiting hours at the prison, a friend of hers had her brother come as a visitor. Lori thought he was very good looking and he had just recently gone through a divorce. So Lori's friend, you know? Kind of set them up and thought they could start like communicating and be pen pals and stuff. But they quickly fell in love and decided to get married. Lori's appeals were denied, and eventually they came up with a plan to escape.

That's a little dark sided.

That's sinister.

It's sinister and odd what people could get away with back then.

Yes.

Whoever's, you know, the office that supplies the birth certificates, like they don't back then have the computerized records. To enter a name. And be like, Oh, no, this person passed away. Yeah, who's asking for this, right?

You'd think you'd get caught right away with something like that like today, you would think you would never get away with that.

No way.

But still, you hear it happen sometimes.

Well, that's the thing people do use, like people who have passed their names. It's very strange.

That one's chilling, though, like using baby's names, it's like, Ooh.

And the fact that because obviously, like, computers weren't what they are now, or really a thing back then, he had to go to the actual cemetery. Like, Yeah, yes, that's eerie commitment, oh.

Crazy.

I found his name too, it's Dominic Gugliato, I think.

Oh, perfect, there you go. Imagine being the family of those babies and finding that out later, too. Yeah, that's rough. I would be so mad.

You almost in a way hope that they didn't find out.

I hope they didn't.

Because that'd be so disturbing.

Yeah, I so do. That would be a terrible thing to have knowledge of.

Yeah, you don't need that, no.

Yeah, unnecessary knowledge.

Yeah.

So it's year nine of Lori's sentence. And she had been noticing that. In the laundry room with the present, there was this little window that was often left open. So that factored into her plan, and she was able to squeeze through the small window frame out into the cold night. And she sprinted toward her new husband, Dominic, who was waiting there in his car with the birth certificates. Ready to drive to the Canadian border.

And.

Slipped right through.

So a jailbreak is always going to be a big story. But when that involves somebody like Lori, who had already attracted so much media attention in the first place, it became a huge story. And at this point in time, though, everybody who hears about the story, it's kind of like the overall public sentiment is like people were rooting for her. It was almost like a Bonnie and Clyde thing, like people made t-shirts, they made bumper stickers, they made songs.

That's wild.

It really is.

It's wild.

It's crazy just how public sentiment turns like at first it was this vilified femme fatale, and then, nine years later, everybody's like rooting for her.

That's scary.

Yeah.

It is scary how the tide turns so quickly.

It really does, and it's just it kind of goes to show you. Like, a lot of whatever happened in the in the trial didn't hold that much weight on people's hearts, you know?

If the public was so willing to be like, I don't know what happened here, but I don't think she was part of it, right?

So they were able to live in a small town in Canada. For three months. She worked as a waitress, and eventually at the cafe she worked at, someone recognized her. So the Canadian mounties ended up surrounding the restaurant, and Lori was soon in custody.

That must have been so scary.

So it's July of 1990. At this point. Again, she's front page news. The ex-cop had been on the lam for months and she was finally in police custody. However, she refused to go back to the U.S and filed for political asylum in Canada.

Which, to me, the fact that they were willing to give her time served for murder. I'm like, Yeah, I don't. I don't even think you guys were convinced that she did this.

Yeah, I think so. I think they looked back on this case and was like, that was very circumstantial, there were a lot of conflicting stories. It wasn't really enough to hold water.

Which is such a tragedy for Lori, one, and then for Christine, too, that perhaps the real person that murdered her, I mean, got away with it forever.

Yeah, and it's just walking around.

It's so scary. So Lori went on to do a lot of things. She was an artist, she had exhibitions. She moved to Washington State to be closer to her parents, who lived in Vancouver at the time.

That is mind blowing.

When I read that, absolutely insane, I guess. She severed an artery and, like, fractured a couple of bones, and then it became infected, so it was amputated from the knee down.

And it's like, it's all scary and such a strange story. And it ended up, you know, with the DNA results, ended up being inconclusive, so that didn't go anywhere.

So it wasn't even all that worth it. That's awful.

Wow, not that they could try her again, even if it wasn't so it didn't matter either way.

Yeah. Lori was diagnosed with PTSD, she had hepatitis C and suffered from alcoholism, which led to passing away at a young age. She was only in her early 50s when she passed away from liver and kidney failure in 2010..

So young.

So young, definitely, definitely, and what a way to go. I mean, that's awful.

And what a life, yeah, a lot packed into a short period of time.

And just really marked with tragedy, and she never got the justice that I think she deserved personally.

Absolutely, and it must have been so stressful going through all of that. But of course, by the time you're in your 40s and 50s, you know, maybe you're dependent on substances and your body's really been through it. Yeah, it just, I believe, led to a really young death for her.

Yeah.

And there's all kinds of unanswered questions in this case. Like, I read that there was male DNA found on Christine's body that never really got tested. And it seems that her boyfriend at the time was cleared. So you wonder like he had to have been cleared somehow, so did they test that DNA?

I think they cleared him with an alibi.

With an alibi.

So maybe they didn't even bother.

And it's like, So why didn't anybody ever test that DNA?

Yeah.

So weird. And then there was like, there was hair, I think it was the hair, that was not the one found on Christine's calf. Because I think that was the wig hair. But there was other hair found at the crime scene and they came out. A hair analyst from a crime lab in Madison, Wisconsin, concluded that they were consistent with blonde hairs that were found in Lori's brush. But then the medical examiner who worked on the case came out later and completely opposed that claim.

Yikes, that is sinister.

That is shady, that is shady.

The fact that, I mean, because I don't think that the hair analyst at the crime lab was lying, obviously, but it's like,-.

The hair was in the envelope, it's like, how'd it get in the envelope?

And I mean, sorry. But who had access to that brush?

The medical examiner is coming right out and being like, I don't like to, because she's like, I'm not going to say it. But like, it wasn't there when I saw it.

Right, that's interesting. So how did it end up there? yeah.

That is so crazy.

It is, and then I also read, and this is. I think this was just recently reported on that, and it was reported on by Milwaukee magazine. They said new ballistics tests revealed that the gun that Lori supposedly used was actually not the murder weapon.

That's interesting.

And I couldn't find, like, really anything else on that. But they retested some of the guns and-.

It was at least coming into question.

It was coming into question. So there's just a lot unanswered here. Oh, and then one more thing Fred, I guess, was allegedly in one of the incriminating photos that Lori had.

Oh, it's in Lori's book.

She full on included the nude, really.

Yeah.

She was like, Fuck you Fred, fuck you Fred.

She was like, I don't have time for revenge porn, but.

No, no.

No, actually, it was in a public place, it wasn't like it was a selfie he sent her or anything but.

Yeah.

It's in the book. So that's interesting that he was in one of those pictures, and I'm not saying anything. It's just interesting that he was in one of those photos. And that she was going to go to the department with those photos.

It is interesting.

I don't know.

There's just so much like dirty stuff happening in that environment that it's like it's all been so tainted.

Yeah, it started.

It's hard to find any truth.

It started with corruption, and I feel like it ended with at the very least just mishandling.

Yeah.

So.

And it's really sad, it's so sad for Lori because I really don't believe she did it.

And what a life.

Again, I don't know who did it, but I really don't think she did it. And I think she. To have that kind of life based on that is wild and so sad and tragic. And then it's so sad for Christine and her two boys, like, I don't know if her two boys wanted. You know, are trying to just move on and don't want to know, but it's like to not know who did that.

It's so sad all the way around, it's such a crazy situation.

Yeah, I hope that somehow they could, like, test that DNA someday, I know.

Maybe that would be very interesting, for sure.

That'd be crazy. I can see it happening. But this is just one of the stories that you're going to cover in your new series, and I'm so excited to see it.

Seriously, so excited.

Thank you so much, I'm really proud of it.

And you did a great job telling that story, by the way.

You really did.

Thank you. I was nervous. I'm like, Oh, I gotta tell the story, their style.

It was perfect.

You did a great job, thank you so much.

That's a captivating story, for sure it is. And I'm just going to have you say really quickly where people can watch it, because I did not ask you where people can watch the new show.

Oh yeah. The Playboy Murders Season 2 premieres on Monday, January 22nd, on Investigation Discovery, and after that it will be available to stream on MaX.

So excited. Hell yeah, we love ID Discovery here. Oh yeah.

It's on in my house 24-7.

Yeah.

Perfect combo, that's awesome, you got the best of both worlds right there.

Well guys, first of all, thank you so much Holly for joining us again, and guys, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird as this case, and not so weird that you don't go check out the Playboy murders.

And listen to my dog spark for a little while, woof, woof.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com Slash Survey.